occupation:  here we shall be nothing of the kind, I can see.  You do not understand at all—­but things are so.  We must live perfectly separate lives, then.  You are nothing to me, really, nor I to you, only we live on the same earth, which is nothing at all—­a mere chance.  Your own food, clothes, and everything that you want, you will procure for yourself:  it is perfectly easy:  the shores are crowded with mansions, castles, towns and villages; and I will do the same for myself.  The motor down there I set apart for your private use:  if I want another, I will get one; and to-day I will set about looking you up a boat and fishing tackle, and cut a cross on the bow of yours, so that you may know yours, and never use mine.  All this is very necessary:  you cannot dream how much:  but I know how much.  Do not run any risks in climbing, now, or with the motor, or in the boat ... little Leda ...’

I saw her under-lip push, and I turned away in haste, for I did not care whether she cried or not.  In that long voyage, and in my illness at Venice, she had become too near and dear to me, my tender love, my dear darling soul; and I said in my heart:  ’I will be a decent being:  I will turn out trumps.’

* * * * *

Under this castle is a sort of dungeon, not narrow, nor very dark, in which are seven stout dark-grey pillars, and an eighth, half-built into the wall; and one of them which has an iron ring, as well as the ground around it, is all worn away by some prisoner or prisoners once chained there; and in the pillar the word ‘Byron’ engraved.  This made me remember that a poet of that name had written something about this place, and two days afterwards I actually came upon three volumes of the poet in a room containing a great number of books, many of them English, near the Grand Bailli’s bureau:  and in one I read the poem, which is called ‘The Prisoner of Chillon.’  I found it very affecting, and the description good, only I saw no seven rings, and where he speaks of the ‘pale and livid light,’ he should speak rather of the dun and brownish gloom, for the word ‘light’ disconcerts the fancy, and of either pallor or blue there is there no sign.  However, I was so struck by the horror of man’s cruelty to man, as depicted in this poem, that I determined that she should see it; went up straight to her rooms with the book, and, she being away, ferreted among her things to see what she was doing, finding all very neat, except in one room where were a number of prints called La Mode, and debris of snipped cloth, and medley.  When, after two hours, she came in, and I suddenly presented myself, ‘Oh!’ she let slip, and then fell to cooing her laugh; and I took her down through a big room stacked with every kind of rifle, with revolvers, cartridges, powder, swords, bayonets—­evidently some official or cantonal magazine—­and then showed her the worn stone in the dungeon, the ring, the narrow deep slits in the wall, and I told the tale of cruelty, while the splashing of the lake upon the rock outside was heard with a strange and tragic sound, and her mobile face was all one sorrow.